Ryan on Republicans and his future

1/27/13 11:18 AM EST

Rep. Paul Ryan says it’s “premature” to talk about whether he’ll run for president in 2016.

“I’ve got an important job to do,” the Wisconsin Republican said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I represent Wisconsin, I’m chairman of the Budget Committee at a time of a fiscal crisis. I think I can do my job, representing the people I work for by focusing on that right now than focusing on these distant things.”

It was Ryan’s first Sunday show appearance since the 2012 election, and he said his party “obviously” needs to “expand our appeal.”

“We have to expand our appeal to more people and show how we’ll take the country’s founding principles and apply them to the problems of the day to offer solutions to fix our problems,” he said. “We have to show our ideas are better at fighting poverty. How our ideas are better at solving health care. How our ideas are better at solving the problems people are experiencing in their daily lives and that’s a challenge we have to rise to, and I think we’re up for it.”

Ryan said he didn’t offer political commentary between the election and inauguration because he wanted to see how President Barack Obama interpreted the election. Now, Ryan said, he is convinced Obama is focused on “political conquest” not “political compromise.”

“If we had a Clinton presidency, if we had Erskin Bowles chief of staff of the White House, or president of the United States, I think we would’ve fixed this fiscal mess by now,” Ryan said. “That’s not the kind of presidency we’re dealing with right now.”

Ryan expressed some openness to new gun laws, saying “the question of whether or not a criminal is getting a gun is a question we need to look at.”

“We need to look into making sure there aren’t big loopholes where a personal can illegally purchase a firearm,” he said.